Today dear ones, last call, all aboard, won’t you join us please?

We don’t talk enough about the impact of the kind of 70s music about weird made up guys called, like, Big Shitty William or Field Marshall Albatross & maybe that was the band name or the song title, being performed by a load of Jethro Tull looking lads, Mrs Mills & someone in a massive duck costume

This is tomorrow, I know it is staying in, eating soup, watching telly weather but do please come along, we promise to do our utmost to delight you & tickets are free, although you can also order a book with one included

Weather report

University of Birmingham is offering fully- and partially-funded scholarships for Arts & Humanities doctoral research students. Details in the link. I am very interested to hear from prospective research students wishing to work in the fields of: www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/schola...

Babe, come over, we can pirouette down into the deep dark velvet hush of a music box together like tiny plastic ballerinas after the lid is closed

This one of me favs of hers youtu.be/sI6nGeqGHmc?...

There’s a post the oldest selfie from your phone thing going round & I find the oldest selfie on mine is this one from 2017, taken in Philip Larkin’s shaving mirror, from a never completed project I was working on at the time, photographing my reflection & shadow in/on famous men’s possessions

Long tails and important outcomes. Finally, it's live - the website for the report, "Conversion Therapy' and the University of Birmingham c.1966-1983'! There's material about the history, the project, its organisation, and there are resources there too. #HistPsych #HistSTEM #QueerHist #HistSex

Britain’s Deadliest Surfeit of Lampreys with Alexander Armstrong

i visited the palestine museum in edinburgh for @tribunemagazine.bsky.social and spoke to founder faisal salah about showcasing the vibrancy + diversity of palestinian culture in the midst of genocide, witnessing via children's drawings, and the solidarity he has seen from the people of scotland

People trying on clothes at the Way In boutique at Harrods, painted by Muriel Lewis c.1968, in the art therapy studio at Netherne hospital where she was compelled to live. Her work often depicts scenes from a seemingly materially affluent life outside hospital.

As someone currently sporting a haircut that got me read by two laughing teenage girls as “giving Aunt Gladys from Weapons” I fiercely believe this

I’ll be defying the national rail advice and travelling well North of Preston on Thursday. Cannot wait to see Rose and to talk about questionable reality, office nightmares, and more besides.

This Thursday, me & @benpester.bsky.social at Mount Florida books in Glasgow, won’t you join us please?

Out on the street that barren hush of the weekend already entering the half-shut, fire sale hours. Indoors, dusk divides the rooms into a Magrittian Empire of light: half the rug gaudy gold as a dictator’s palace, velvety dark claiming the other, nightmail hours packing up the day to carry it off

This perfect duffer is trying out for the role of spokesmodel for this wonder by @drjamesbailey.bsky.social which I’m so looking forward to reading

Painting created c.1949 in the art therapy studio at Netherne hospital, by an individual who was compelled to live there, currently identified to us only as Drew. This is their only surviving work & no biographical information is currently known to us

Now watching

A bold decision by my dad to let 8 year old me watch Edge of Darkness with him while my mum was out at her evening class. Anyway, I genuinely believe the experience did important, excellent things to my pliable, barely comprehending brain & now it is back on iPlayer & well worth watching/rewatching

This experiment was a response to artist Lucy J. Wright’s yearly Dusking project. The music & film were made at home, mostly from bed in the last 12 hours, using only what was nearby, to explore what Bed Morris might be, how the chronically ill body might take part in dance, ritual, celebration

This experiment was a response to artist Lucy J. Wright’s yearly Dusking project. The music & film were made at home, mostly from bed in the last 12 hours, using only what was nearby, to explore what Bed Morris might be, how the chronically ill body might take part in dance, ritual, celebration

Painting created by Margaret Rose c.1965, in the art therapy studio at Netherne hospital, Surrey, where she was compelled to live. This is one of only three surviving works by her & no biographical information is currently known to us

Wonderful companion to Here We Come A Wassailing, broadcast nine years later. Fascinating how the suspended in space time quality the former shares with The Moon & The Sledgehammer gives way in this to a much stronger sense of unchanged & unchanging rituals unfolding in an already much altered world

I’ve doubtless posted this before, many times maybe, but it really is an incredible piece of documentary filmmaking, which captures those near-far, fingertip folk histories that feel of our own time & just out of reach yet somehow simultaneously deeply arcane & otherworldly youtu.be/ic4qWguBYEM?...

An experiment in using soil & glue as material just for my own curiosity resulted in…this, whatever it is. Was thinking about Homer Sykes’ photos & Here We Come A’ Wassailing, imaging an ancient Earth spirit adorning herself in things she perceived as human from the Sutton Hoo helmet to Love Island

Painting created c.midC20th in the art therapy studio at Netherne hospital in Surrey, by an individual who was compelled to live there, whose identity is currently unknown to us. This image is from art therapist Edward Adamson’s lecture slides: the original is missing, presumed lost

Dressing up for Halloween as a sexy flower arrangement from Le Bonheur

Once saw a man by the river doing a sort of Mortal Kombat stance, squaring up to a massive hissing swan & he kept shouting “I won’t fucking back down pal” at it, as it advanced on him, wings outstretched like a terrible, vengeful angel & sometimes it seems like that is basically the entire world now

12 seconds from 8 stop-motion films (1968–present) across the career of animator Yuri Norstein

The monkeys They overturned their truck Yes YES The monkeys are out

I’ve just finished Birding by @regretteruane.bsky.social Oh my, what a fabulous book! Raw and in parts brutal but always achingly beautifully written. I cried so much through it and identified with several of the characters for different reasons. Bereft now it’s over.

Irresponsibly posting my location on social media

But Doctor, I am Vintage Original Oil Painting Clown Golf Scene Signed F. Durell Vintage Humorous

Had a truly life affirming, cathartic & beautiful time talking to John for this, one that made it clear he’d handle the experiences of all who spoke to him with empathy, wit & profound care. It is a really special book by an extraordinary writer & human so preorder the net curtains out of it, please

Let's take a ride... My next book is coming out with @faberbooks.bsky.social. Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains will be published March 12 2026. Preorder links in profile, and lots more on the book and the remarkable stories people told me to come over the next few months...

Was very happy to find this original Dale Maxey painting from the book, which was one of my childhood favourites, for sale and even happier when it arrived today. The photo doesn’t do the colours or the beautiful illustration work justice at all

Crazy Frog earworm on your deathbed

My emporium is open. The tills are manned by dollies hellohalloweeno.etsy.com

Jenny Cleanteeth, is this anything?

*Bilbo Baggins voice* After All, Why Not? Why Shouldn't I Keep It?

Was kindly given these lovely 60s & 70s Graphis magazines yesterday & the one with the Op Art cover contained very precisely cut snowflakes that seem to have been coloured in by a child & in the loveliest way, finding them made me feel like an insufferable, smug, middle-class hipster Bagpuss prick

My dreams are an absolute tapas of anxiety, abjection & the achingly prosaic but last night when I got back to sleep, I had a very visual, vivid one about floating in a radiant galaxy, all light & majesty until a Protect & Survive voice declaimed THE EYE OF THE UNIVERSE IS CLOSING & it all went dark

We saw you from across the allotment and we liked your vibe

woolbotherer.sumupstore.com/product/hang... I broke and made a Christmas section for my online shop before Halloween. Only one thing in it so far... but just you wait #Christmas #cat #catsofbluesky #commissions #art #cats

One of life’s great consolations is the night sweetie. Moved out of home when I was 17 & never went back & yet, 31 years later I still truly marvel at the fact I can eat whatever I like in the deep dark & no one can stop me. Feels as sumptuously transgressive as flicking the victos behind God’s back

Let’s have a 48th stumble and blunder round the sun then shall we loves?